Mass Effect A Family Apart

**A Family Apart**

He watched his wife hold back tears as he boarded the shuttle to Palaven. He took his seat and sighed heavily, very conscious of what he was leaving behind and what was ahead of him. A war with the Reapers was something that no one ever expected to come back from, and no matter the reassurances he gave his wife, he was worried about dying out there, light years away from his wife and daughters.

His beautiful wife and his gorgeous daughters.

He has said his goodbyes to the girls in the morning before they left to school. They didn't want him to go, and he knew that, and he was so proud of them for not asking him to stay. They knew that he was a good turian, and that the Hierarchy's word was law to him. They knew he would have to go and that he might never come back, but they didn't let a single tear fall as they told him to come back soon and to be safe.

He pretended not to hear Niri's sniffles after they left the room…

He was just so, so proud of them.

He was going to miss them so much.

He looked around at the other turians in the shuttle and wasn't surprised to find most of them in the same form of distress as him. As the shuttle started to move, a few whimpering cries from some of the younger turians on board, and he could only take comfort in the fact that he was old enough to be able to restrain himself from joining them.

-/-/-

She made it back home in a daze, barely able to keep her tears hidden until she was alone in her room. She was thankful the girls were in school, so they wouldn't see her break down. She needed to be strong for them, and knew that any sign of wear and tear would have to be nonexistent in front of them.

As she shed the last of her tears, she sighed and got up to get ready for work, making a mental note to cancel the girls' dance classes as soon as she got back.

-/-/-

She was _furious_.

Her loan was denied.

She kept her centuries old credit history _squeaky clean_ for loans in case of emergencies, and she was _still denied_ so that more illustrious clients could get the loans that the bank had no shortage of!

It took all she had not to unleash a singularity on the volus handling her paperwork. But she let him know how displeased she was and what she thought of him and his bank's policies and _how dare he_!

Her outburst had her kicked out of the bank, and, as she sat on the steps outside of it, she figured that she could have handled the whole situation better. She had really needed that loan, as she promised her husband that she'd try to make it to Sanctuary. But then she remembered the volus' reason for why her request was declined and it had her growling again.

In the end, she decided that she didn't need the loan to get to Sanctuary. She'd pick up the second shift at work she told her husband that she was getting and save up the money by herself. She might be a civilian but she was a strong woman and it was war time and _nothing_ was going to stop her from providing her husband ease of mind while he was out there fighting so that he would come back alive.

And if it meant tightening her belt and scraping together every last credit she could to get them to Sanctuary, then she would.

-/-/-

Palaven was a nightmare.

They had landed in a rural area, where the reaper ground forces were thinner and they had a chance to set up a forward operating base, but everywhere he looked there was destruction. The once tall and proud buildings were burned and broken, and all of the plant life was charred and blackened.

He tried not to let it get to him, after all, before his deployment he worked with ruins on a regular basis. But this was his civilization that lay in ruins around him, and he couldn't help but feel some sort of distress towards the situation. It made him think about his home colony, and if it was going through the same thing.

It made him wonder about his parents, and if he was ever going to see them again.

He kept it off of his mind as best as he could. He needed to focus on his duties so that they would have a chance of making it out alive.

-/-/-

She picked up the graveyard shift. This way, she reasoned, her daughters would be asleep while she was out working, and with her first shift during their school time, they wouldn't even miss her.

She didn't realize how wrong she was until she came home to find both of her daughters up and upset. Niri had a nightmare, apparently, and went looking for her for comfort, and, upon realizing her mother wasn't home, she woke up her sister screaming that their mother had abandoned them. This led to the two of them panicking and the situation they were in when she walked in through the front door.

She had honestly never heard anything more idiotic in her life.

Tired, stressed, and angry, she snapped at them for their pessimistic way of thinking, telling them that she would never abandon them. She had to pick up more work so that she could provide for them, and all they could think about was her running away?

She refused to listen to their excuses, and instead ordered them to get ready for school and let her sleep the few scant hours until she had to go to her next shift.

Collapsing onto her bed, she had completely forgotten that it was a weekend, and that they would be at home all day long. They timidly reminded her of this when they woke her up with a warm breakfast in bed, apologizing for their behavior and telling her that it was okay, and that they understood that she missed their father.

Her response was to hug them tightly and apologize for her behavior. She promised them that she would try to get better hours while mentally praying that they didn't know she was lying.

-/-/-

She was on her way home from her day shift when she saw the Cerberus agents.

She hadn't cared at first, thinking it was the stress that was just getting to her and finally making her see things. She blinked a few times and kept on walking, fully intending to push past them and get home.

In hindsight, she was thankful that she didn't get that far, because as soon as she blinked the gunshots rang out, causing people to scream and scatter. The sound made her freeze in her spot, and she watched in horror as the Cerberus agents shot down any civilians in their way.

She finally started functioning normally when a gun was pointed at her. She let out a yelp and ran into the nearest store. She didn't stop until she went into the back room, which, to her fortune, was big enough with plenty of spaces to hide. And hide she did, because she had the feeling that the Cerberus troopers were intent on shooting anyone they could find.

She wasn't off the mark about that. She had only hid for about a minute before she heard the Cerberus chatter outside the backdoor. After a moment, two troopers burst in and proceeded to scan the area. She held her breath as they did so, and didn't let it go until they were out of the room again. She listened as their footsteps and the sounds of gunfire retreated until everything was silent. Then, after a moment of relief of having survived, she remembered—her daughters.

_Her daughters were still out there. _

They would have been making their way home from school at this time.

Panicking, she tried to comm them several times without any success. She left her hiding place and ran out of the shop towards her home, heedless of the danger around her. She was reminded of it after a few turns when she heard gunfire again. She squeaked meekly and found another place to hide until the sounds receded before venturing out again.

She fled from hiding place to hiding place until she made it back home. She called out for daughters in the apartment, and when she didn't hear a reply, she frantically searched for them. When she didn't find them, she ran out the door, screaming their names in panic.

She was down a few doors when she heard Niri's voice. She was crying and behind one of the doors. So she did what any mother would do in this situation.

Not knowing exactly where her daughter was hiding, she started banging at each door and calling her daughter name at the top of her voice. She knew that she found the right door when Niri screamed for her. Moments after, the door burst open and she rushed in to find both of her daughters hiding with an old human woman. She rushed to them and hugged them tightly, crying in relief at their safety. They hugged and cried and reassured each other of their well-being before they heard more gunfire outside.

Suddenly quieting down, the atmosphere turned tense as the old woman told them to follow her into the room to hide. The four of them made it to the bedroom quietly, and the girls crawled under the bed as the old woman stashed herself in the closet.

She wound up hiding behind the door, and it gave her cover when the door of the apartment was blown open by a trio of Cerberus troopers. She heard them stomping about in the living room, and she saw a shadow venture into the bedroom doorway, but none of them came further than that. They left after a few minutes, but no one came out of their hiding place until it was completely quiet outside.

Since the front door was broken, they took refuge in the bedroom, with the door closed but unlocked. The old woman—Teresa, as she later introduced herself—had wanted to lock it, but if they locked it, then someone would know they're in there, and next time they would search the room more thoroughly. So they tensely sat there and hid at the slightest noise. They didn't speak much to each other, and she held her daughters whenever they weren't hiding. Even when things quieted down, they didn't dare to go outside.

It wasn't until C-SEC came knocking that they finally left their hiding places. They had hid as soon as they heard noise, but as soon as they entered they declared who they were and asked if there was anyone alive. She broke out of cover then, to make sure they really were C-SEC before calling everyone else out. The officers were relieved to see them alive and unharmed. They told them that the attack was over, and that the streets were relatively safe once more. Teresa wanted to report the damage to her apartment to C-SEC, and the officers told her to go ahead and file the reports and to deliver them to the station.

She knew she couldn't stay after that, so she thanked Teresa for giving them shelter and bade her farewell. The officers insisted on escorting them back to the apartment, for which she was thankful because there was an armed looter scavenging through the apartment. The officers apprehended him and got him out of the way after making a sweep in the apartment for any more surprises. After that, they bade her a good day and left with the looter.

She locked the door and looked around the apartment, taking in the damage. She then turned to her daughters and told them to start fixing up the house while she prepared dinner.

Life had to go on after this, right?

-/-/-

The news about the attack on the Citadel made his heart stop.

The news had come along with the krogans, and it kept him up during the night as he tried to figure out whether his wife and daughters had made it to Sanctuary before that or not. But he hadn't heard anything from them since he landed on Palaven, and he kept with his orders and kept comm silence.

He was a good turian soldier. He was.

But he couldn't take the knowledge of not knowing what might have happened to his family any longer.

Besides, he had promised her to send a message for Niri's birthday. That was in a few weeks…an early message wouldn't be such a bad idea, would it?

He used that as an excuse to justify it as he put a message through to his family. He kept it short—shorter than a minute—and had the quality set on one of the lower settings so that it wouldn't take up much space. He then hacked into his commanding officer's comm channel and sent it from there, hoping that no one would notice and that the message would get there soon.

As he drifted off to sleep that night, he decided that in the morning he would ask his commanding officer for permission to receive a single message from his wife, even though he knew the chances of it being approved were slim to none.

-/-/-

They were calling it "The Miracle on Palaven."

She fully agreed.

It gave her hope that her husband was still alive out there, and with the krogan on the front lines, nothing would get to him….

…unless they attacked the Citadel.

The Cerberus attack showed her that she didn't have as much time as she thought she did. It was getting more and more dangerous out there, and soon not even the Citadel would be safe. But she didn't have enough funds, and at her current rate, it would be months before she made enough money for the tickets to Sanctuary.

So she decided to pick up another shift.

This time though, she told her daughters about it beforehand, and, while they were unhappy about it, they accepted the news well enough. They did pose a few important questions, however, and the most important one was about dinner, since she wasn't going to be there for that meal anymore.

She told them she would make dinner for them before she left, and all they had to do was reheat it. They didn't like the idea, but they begrudgingly agreed to it.

-/-/-

There were no more shifts she could grab, so she wound up getting a part time job.

This meant that she had to leave home earlier, and thus couldn't cook dinner for her daughters.

So she asked Teresa if they could stay with her in the afternoons.

The human woman was old and frail, but her daughters haven't stopped talking about her since the incident. She figured if any problems arose, she would find out about it within a few days and hire a proper baby sitter.

However, everything went fine, and she was surprised when her daughters excitedly told her how much fun they had while she was at work. Soon, Teresa became like a grandmother to them, and she was keeping them smiling during the hard times they were in.

-/-/-

They never got a message for Niri's birthday, and it was all she could do to keep her composure while her daughters and their friends gathered around the table to start opening presents.

-/-/-

She knew that the stress she was putting herself under was going to catch up to her sometime, but she didn't think she would collapse in the middle of her walk home.

She woke up in the hospital with her daughters hovering over her. As soon as they saw she was awake, they both burst into tears and hugged her tightly.

It took a while to calm them down and longer to convince the doctors to release her right away. They let her go in the end but insisted that she should get a good night's rest. She hastily agreed at first, hoping that she would have enough time to put the girls in bed and then run off to her night job, but her daughters refused to sleep before she did and wound up forcing her into bed. She jokingly told them to at least call her workplace so that they knew she was out sick and was surprised that they'd already done that.

After they were sure she wasn't going anywhere, they both climbed into bed with her and the three of them fell asleep hugging each other.

-/-/-

The next time she stopped by Teresa's to pick up her kids, the old woman cornered her and asked her why she was pushing herself so hard. She told her about the promise she made to her husband to go to Sanctuary, and how she couldn't get a loan and had to raise the money for the tickets by herself. She told her that it'll be over soon; she would only need a few more thousand credits. She thanked her again for her willingness to spend time with her daughters, seeing as she knew that they could be quite the handful. The old woman had looked thoughtful after that and let them leave with no further questions.

The next day was surprising, however. When she came over the collect her daughters, Teresa cornered her again and offered to loan her the rest of the money needed for the tickets. Alarmed, she declined, knowing that Teresa was on a fixed income and the amount of money she was offering would inconvenience her. But the old woman insisted, saying that it was war and thus not a time to be selfish.

In the end, she caved in and accepted the help, swearing to pay back the human woman after the war was over.

-/-/-

She was halfway through the ticket transaction when she heard the news about Sanctuary.

Her daughters were watching the television while she was looking up ticket prices on the extranet. When she found the best price, she entered the required information, but before she could hit the continue button, her daughters called and brought her attention to the television screen.

They spent the next twenty minutes watching in growing horror at the true nature of Sanctuary. They watched as the camera drones zoomed in on reaper and Cerberus bodies before zooming in on the bodies of the refugees—the refugees who had gone to Sanctuary as a last hope.

She was suddenly grateful that her loan had been rejected, and that it took her so long to gather enough money to get the tickets. She cancelled the transaction, feeling somewhat guilty that she was so lucky and others weren't. All those poor people…

She decided to send her husband a message to assure him that they were all alright and still safe and sound. She also decided to ask Teresa if she could use the money to purchase tickets to Thessia instead. Surely her father would be happy to see her and the kids…even though she disowned her…

…War would change her opinion, right?

-/-/-

It was as though his world had stopped when he heard the news about Sanctuary.

He stumbled onto the battlefield, heedless of the crossfire and the reaper forces. He had to be pulled to safety by his comrades, and didn't hear a single word of his commander officer's lecture about his actions. He just sat there on his cot, with his thoughts running amok in his mind.

He had begged his wife to take the girls and go there, to find a safe haven from the terrors of the war.

And he knew his wife.

He knew his wife would do all she could to get to Sanctuary. She was a strong, determined woman who always finished what she set her mind on.

And now he lost her and the children.

It was his fault.

_It was his fault._

-/-/-

It turned out that Thessia had fallen a few days before Sanctuary. She had panicked when she first heard that, seeing as how her father was last seen on Thessia, but she forced herself to calm down and focus on her daughters.

She couldn't help her father or husband, but she could help her daughters.

Seeing as how she didn't need the extra money now, she returned the loaned money to Teresa and quit her part time job. She then spent the extra money reinforcing the apartment door and installing a new security system. She also paid a shady salarian to set up a private comm link for her and her daughters that they could access at any time, including during another Cerberus raid. She then found a very shady asari and spent the rest of the money on a small pistol and some thermal clips.

She hid the gun on the highest shelf in her wardrobe behind her perfume and makeup. She didn't want the girls finding it.

-/-/-

He had become reckless.

He didn't care if he died or lived to see the end of the war.

He was grieving, and no amount of reaper deaths would make him feel better.

It wasn't going to bring them back.

It wasn't going to stop him from lying down in his bed at night wondering if the Marauders he had killed weren't his parents or relatives.

It wasn't going to stop him from lying down in bed and wondering if his wife and daughters were Banshees out there somewhere. Or if he had killed them without realizing it.

It wasn't going to stop him from blaming himself for their deaths.

His commanding officer yelled at him a few times, but he didn't listen to a single word that was said.

In his downtime, he worked on recreating the Cerberus turrets from the copy of the schematics that came from the Citadel along with their latest batch of reinforcements. He didn't care about how volatile or needlessly complicated the design was. All he needed was something to occupy his time, even though the contraption exploded in his face a number of times and upset his comrades. Nonetheless, he worked on it anytime he wasn't on the clock, and with a few tweaks here and there, he managed to recreate the Cerberus turret for turian use.

As soon as he finished making the first one, he scavenged for scraps to make the next one, and then the one after it. He worked on the turrets as much as he could, and gave them to other engineers while he was on the clock. He didn't want to use one in case he suddenly had free time while on the battlefield, and then he would start thinking and remembering—

No. It hurt too much to do so.

So he worked on the turrets nonstop, and, eventually, other engineers started asking for his revised schematics and advice on making their own turrets, and his CO's lectures started turning into reluctant praise. So it was fine. Surely better than sitting around plagued with guilt all day long.

-/-/-

Even though she had quit her part time job, the girls still went to Teresa's apartment after school. This was fine by her, as it gave her a chance to clean up and cook dinner while Teresa enjoyed their company. She treated them like the grandmother they never got to see.

The girls usually came home around the same time every day without her having to call them, so she was very worried when they didn't come home on time one day. Waiting an hour brought her to the conclusion that they weren't late; they just weren't going to show up.

She ran over to Teresa's apartment, and the old woman answered the door in confusion. She asked her where her daughters were, and the old human answered in confusion that the girls were still at school. She asked why they were still at school, and the old woman looked surprised as she informed her that the girls have stopped coming over days ago, saying that they had afterschool activities to attend to.

She hastily thanked the old woman and ran towards the school while trying to call her daughters, but neither of them would answer their comms.

She got to the school in a panic and harassed the first person she met about the whereabouts of her daughters. The salarian was surprised that she didn't know about their new student defense program and explained it to her on the way towards the gymnasium.

The program was there to teach students what to do in case they were attacked. They were taught how to duck and cover, which direction to run depending on the type of gun, and what places were best for hiding and most defensible. They were also taught basic triage and field medicine, like how to apply medigel correctly for best results, where pressure points were, how to stem the flow of bleeding wounds, what to do when someone goes into shock, and how to administer basic CPR. There was also a human teaching the students martial arts…something called Aikido.

She entered the gymnasium to find it full of students of all ages and species. She was surprised at how young some of the students were, and how old others were. One of her daughters was with the group that was learning field medicine, and the other was with the martial artists. She pulled them aside and hissed a demand to know why she had to find out about this from Teresa and the salarian caretaker. They guiltily told her they very much wanted to do this and were afraid she would say no. She replied that she wasn't mad that they were learning to defend themselves, but rather that they didn't tell her that they wanted to do this. She reminded them that they were supposed to stick together while their dad was not here, and that she wouldn't have said no to them learning something this crucial. She then hugged each of them before letting them get back to their lessons.

She walked back to the salarian caretaker and apologized for her behavior earlier, which he shrugged off and said was understandable, seeing as tension was high nowadays. She stood with him and watched the area for a few minutes, taking note of how many asari there were. As he bid her a good day and turned to leave, she stopped him and offered to help out by teaching anyone who wanted to learn how to make effective barriers.

He blinked at her in surprise before telling her that he wasn't in charge here, but the older turian that stood in the back was the one coordinating the whole ordeal. She thanked him for this information and went to volunteer her services.

-/-/-

He volunteered for the battle on Earth.

They needed a few extra engineers, and his CO was all too happy to let him go.

He hadn't fully calmed down from his overworking frenzy, but had decided that he shouldn't grieve anymore. He should find out what happened to his family first—get some solid proof that they're gone.

He tried to hope for them to be alive, but it hurt too much to do so. So instead he brushed it aside and didn't think about it much.

So he volunteered for the battle on Earth simply because the Sol system was closer to the Citadel than the Apien Crest. Hopefully it would mean he could catch the first shuttle to the Citadel after the war.

-/-/-

She was cooking dinner for Teresa and her daughters when the first tremors hit.

She was in the kitchen while the other three were in the living room, with Teresa telling the girls a story about her youth.

The tremors shook the whole apartment, and she had to hold the cooking pot down so it wouldn't fall to the floor. After the tremors calmed down, she released the pot and checked on the others. When she was sure that they were unharmed, she reassured them that everything is fine before peeking out a window, but that didn't help her assess the situation at all. So she opened the door and cautiously walked out to see what was happening.

She wasn't the only one out there; many other residents were standing outside and gasping and pointing at the sky. She looked up and watched in awe as the arms of the Citadel closed. The girls and Teresa came outside after her, and they huddled close as the arms blocked out the stars.

It wasn't until the arms were almost completely closed that they heard a _very_ loud sound that was too familiar. It was then that they saw their first Reaper, and screams and shrieks soon followed. She didn't stop to think as she shooed her daughters and dragged Teresa back into the apartment. She then closed, locked, and bolted the door and turned on the security system.

She then told the girls to go and close all the windows and shutters while she persuaded Teresa to stay with them. The old woman would have none of it, however, as she insisted that she had to get home. She wouldn't explain any further, and it was worrying. In the end, it was the girls who convinced her to stay, as they became severely upset by her demands of leaving, and Niri had started to cry. Teresa had then ceded her argument and decided to stay.

-/-/-

Reapers were at her door.

She had the gun in her hand and a barrier in place and the girls and Teresa hiding in a closet and _the reapers were at her door_.

They were pounding and clawing and she could hear their moaning. This was like the geth's attack three years ago but _so much worse_. Her husband was there during that time and he was protecting them and she had felt a small amount of safety with him around.

But he wasn't there now and he could be dead and _the reapers were at her door_.

She had to be the one to keep the girls safe without feeling any amount of safety herself. She was _terrified_ and _there were reapers at her door_.

She had never fired a gun in her life…

And that door wasn't going to hold. Neither would the barrier she erected; especially against a barrage of reapers.

There was an especially loud _bang_ on the door and she had to stifle a scream as she strengthened the barrier. She had been reading a lot of extranet articles about reapers, and if one of the big ones was _here_…

She prayed that it was just a bunch of tiny ones walloping at the door rather than a big one. They would all die against a big one.

Another loud bang made her jump, and she decided that it wasn't worth it trying to save the living room. So she moved the couch in front of the door and ran inside the bedroom where the girls were hiding and stayed with them.

-/-/-

It was odd, really. The devastation on Earth was a lot worse than on Palaven, but it didn't bother him as much. He figured it was because this wasn't his own home world, and because he just didn't care for much of anything anymore.

He was helping the aliens set up a forward operating base in a city they called London when he caught sight of the Citadel in the sky. He had to stop and gape as he resisted the urge to just run past enemy lines to try and make his way to where his home used to be.

But he knew better. Rushing off would only get him turned into a reaper, and if he was turned into a reaper, he wouldn't be able to find out what happened to his family.

So he went back to work, keeping an eye on the Citadel and whishing the war was over already. He was tired of it.

-/-/-

_The door held._

The door _held_ and she didn't even know _how_. When she crawled out to it after the banging stopped, she barely managed to touch it before it collapsed on itself. She screamed and threw up a barrier while ducking behind the couch. When she realized she wasn't being mauled or shot at, she poked her head above the couch and found that there was nothing outside the door.

She slowly climbed out from behind the couch and poked her head out of the door. There was nothing outside—well, nothing moving; the hallway was littered with dead bodies. She looked to a few faces before a new kind of rumbling started, and felt like an earthquake hit the Citadel. She ran to her daughters and told them to put up their barriers—this was going to get dangerous.

-/-/-

He was cornered with two krogan soldiers and three volus medics when the red beam launched from the citadel. He covered his eyes from the bright light, and when he was able to look again, there were no more reapers around them.

A volus climbed on top of a krogan and looked around. He reported that all of the reaper forces in the area had vanished.

He couldn't believe it. Was the war finally over?

-/-/-

A human named Coats was looking for volunteers to go to the Citadel, so he instantly volunteered. Their goal was to find Commander Shepard and Admiral Anderson, but almost everyone who volunteered had their own agenda.

In the end, the group consisted of thirty soldiers from almost every race. They headed to the beam that connected to the Citadel and went into it single file. That's when they encountered their first problem.

The beam threw them into different areas. No more than five of them wound up in one area, and there were two soldiers that they lost complete contact with.

He got stuck with a group of krogan that didn't even look disturbed at the carnage around them while he had to fight with himself to not regurgitate his last meal. The amount of dead bodies was…staggering. They were all human bodies, thrown in messy piles while they rotted or whatever the reapers wanted to do with them. He forced himself to look at the piles, however, to see if there was anyone he recognized among them. He jumped every time he caught the sight of something blue, but it usually turned out to be just a piece of clothing…or a body part.

It took a while, but with enough searching, they had founds Coats. He had several other groups with him at the time, and it looked like they were the last to arrive. Coats then ordered them to move out and start looking for survivors, and the mission began.

-/-/-

They needed food.

She and her daughters had been alternating holding the barrier up, and it made them hungry a lot more often than when they didn't use their biotics. Their food supply wasn't well stocked to begin with, and after spending a multitude of days within the apartment, they were down to their last few snack bars—everything else had already rotted or had been eaten.

So she needed to go out and scavenge for some human and asari food.

That terrified her almost as much as the reapers that were at her door did.

True, the area immediately outside her apartment was relatively safe, but she didn't know what she would find outside that. Would there be reapers? Looters? Desperate people looking for provisions?

Still, she needed to go out there and find food and water. And maybe medigel. Niri had taken a nasty fall during the earthquake-like rumbles that had hit the Citadel.

So she sternly told her daughters to keep the barrier up while she was gone and gave the gun to Teresa in case they needed it. The old woman argued at first, as she was going out there unarmed, but she reminded the human that she was an asari biotic, and she still knew how to do singularities and warps. The trio reluctantly bid her farewell as she left, hoping that she would come back soon.

She hoped she would come back at all.

-/-/-

They were somewhere in the wards and while he wasn't positive, he was sure that this area was close to his home. It took a few more familiar fallen signs before he figured out where he was exactly. He didn't even think about it as he broke away from the group. Startled, the group followed him, and the two krogan he was stuck with grumbled at how he was just going to land them in trouble.

And trouble he led them to. There was a pair of turians battling an asari ahead of them, and, from the sounds of it, the turians were losing. The asari was screaming things at the top of her lungs while she launched one abiotic attack after the other at the turians attacking her. He was impressed with her ability, since her state of dress told him that she was a civilian.

In the end, the two turians ran away before they were killed, and the asari civilian stood victorious. He moved to her, to announce their presence and tell her that they were here to help, but she sensed his presence first and whirled to face him as a blue glow surrounded her, ready to attack. He was surprised by her reaction, but that emotion melted into unbridled joy and then into dawning horror as he discovered that it was his wife who was glaring back at him, ready to kill him.

Just what had happened to her?

-/-/-

On her first trip out, she had trusted a pair of humans who seemed kind and friendly enough, and she almost suffered severe consequences for it. She had returned home from that trip shaken, with a meager amount of food and a kill count of two.

Since then, she didn't trust anyone outside the apartment, and attacked anyone on the first sign of danger. It didn't win her any friends, but it did keep her alive and gave her a decent share of whatever loot she could find. It also raked up her kill count, which kept her up at night with horrible thoughts of what she had become in order to keep her children and guest safe. Would her husband recognize her now? Was he even still alive?

Each scavenging trip took her out further and further from her home, and today was no different. She was a few blocks down when two turians ambushed her for the meager amount of medigel she had found. They almost had her, too, and she was terrified that she was going to die and leave her daughters to fend for themselves. The thought gave her the strength she needed, and she let out a battle roar and didn't stop screaming the reasons as to why she couldn't die yet at the top of her lungs. As she did so, she threw one biotic attack after the other at the turians. It quickly became apparent that they weren't very professional at what they were doing, because they were taken back by her yelling, and, combined with her biotic assault, they hastily retreated. She sagged in relief when she saw them take off. She would live to fight another day.

She barely took a few steps before she felt another presence. She flared her biotics and wore her most menacing look as she turned around. What she saw almost made her scream.

It was her husband.

At least, she thought it was her husband.

It could be some other turian that looked like him.

She'd been seeing a lot of them lately.

She just missed him _so much_.

But then he called her name and she started to cry because it really _was_ him.

He was finally home.

She was finally safe.

She had missed him _so much_.

-/-/-

As soon as the blue aura around her dissipated, he launched himself forward towards his wife. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly, babbling about how much he missed her and how thankful he was that she was alive. She hugged him back and started kissing him then, and he let her do so before bumping his forehead to hers while he keened with happiness. He didn't care that the rest of his team was there, or that the krogans were shouting jeering taunts his way—the only thing he cared about was that his wife was safe and in his arms.

She pulled away as she regained her composure and started pulling him along. She told him that they had to get home as fast as possible because the girls were there and they would be happy to see him again. The news hit him like a rocket to the face; in his happiness to see his wife, he had completely forgotten about the girls. He felt ashamed, but it was overpowered by the happiness he felt to see his wife alive and knowing that the girls were alive when he thought they were dead or worse. He eagerly sped up his pace and started dragging her along, which made her laugh and speed up as well. Pretty soon, they were running towards the apartment with their hands linked and a small group of soldiers at their heels.

When she got there, the first thing he noticed was the blue barrier that had replaced the door. She yelled for the barrier to be turned off and then ran in. He followed nervously, suddenly afraid of what he would find inside.

He only took a few steps inside when the girls launched themselves at him. They were screaming and crying and he bent down to hold them both tightly as he told them how much he missed them. His wife came back too, and she kneeled and wrapped her arms around all three of them, and he was home. He was _finally_ _home_.

-/-/-

It turned out that Teresa came from a wealthy family on Earth.

After being found and registered, there was someone there for her in a few days' time to pick her up and take her to her family home. The old human woman had refused to leave, telling the man who came to get her that she wouldn't leave without the wonderful asari lady standing beside her, and the asari lady wouldn't leave without her daughters and husband. The man didn't even hesitate to comply to her orders, and, after some persuading, the asari and her turian husband climbed in the back seats of the skycar while their daughters sat in their parents' laps.

-/-/-

The ride lasted many hours and was uncomfortable at times, and when they finally arrived, Teresa had to focus on stretching her legs out before she looked at the estate. It was a large estate; fancy and elegant looking despite the war. She nodded to herself in approval. The estate was large enough to house her guests indefinitely. She would only have to procure food for her guests, and maybe one day they would be able to call this place home.

She turned to look at them and smiled as they stood together, holding hands, and realized that maybe they were already home. And they would be so long as they had each other.


End file.

Mass Effect, Drama, Family